To increase and promote ethical elephant tourism.To create a viable self-sustaining eco-tourism programme for the village.Improve standards of living and job opportunities for the people of Huay Pakkoot. Improve sustainable natural resource management in the Huay Pakkoot area.

volunteers prepare for their forest expedition!

GVI volunteers and staff completed their anuual GVI Trust challenge where they spent 48hrs sleeping out in the forest, living with the bare minimum and putting their survival skills to the test. All of the volunteers were assigned teams, each trying to fundraise as much as possible to help raise money for our three elephants, Khum Suk, Sah Jah and Lulu, who are solely supported through the GVI Trust.

Fundraising to keep these elephants in the forest is a fundamental part of this project, as through these donations, we are able to bring back more elephants to live in their natural environment. As well as supporting three elephants to live a natural life in the forest, the GVI Trust also helps to pay for emergency transport for the elephants, as well as additional elephant food and also mahout training.

Prior to the sleep out volunteers undertook multiple survival skill workshops, learning how to light fires, to purify water, to create shelters and trap fish in the river. Whilst out on the sleep out, volunteers were broken up into three teams to correlate with the three elephants they were challenging themselves to raise money for; Khum Suk, Sah Jah and Lulu. Each challenge provided the winning team with food rations and team points.

The volunteers, staff and mahouts slept in the forest for two nights, in extremely cold conditions. Spending most of the two nights tending to their fires, to keep warm. Everyone pulled together throughout the challenge and kept each other’s spirits high.

The sleep out was shared on social media before, during and after the event, in an attempt to raise funds and awareness of our cause. We raised a total of 1,660.95 GBP which was 33% of our target. A big thank you to all those that donated and of course to the volunteers, who took on the two day challenge.